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Published: April 21st 2013
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After finishing the salt flat tour and staying in the middle of nowhere (Uyuni), me and Jon were looking forward to heading to a big city for a few days. We arrived in Sucre, the constitutional capital of Bolivia, late in the afternoon after passing through Potosi the highest city in the world. We had our own private room in our hostel called Wasi Masi. The room was really cute and we had our own bathroom all for £5 a night. After checking in and showering we made our way to a restaurant/bar we had been recommended called Florin to meet some of our pals we had been travelling with. We couldn't believe how cheap the food and cocktails were so of course we took advantage of it. After a meal and 4 cocktails each, only £10, we were pretty drunk (which we blamed on the high altitude) so we headed back to the hostel and had an early night.
The next day the search began again to get big foot (Jon) some trainers. We went to lots of shops and stalls again without any luck and all the locals still finding Jon's shoes size (UK 10) alien and hilarious!
Later in the afternoon there was some football (Barcelona vs Paris St Germain) at the bar we had gone to the night before so we spent the rest of the day there drinking beer and eating burgers. Jon turned me into a proper lad for the day! In the evening we got some snacks from the supermarket and a litre of Havana Club rum for £6 and we sat on the hostel balcony with Jon making us all Mojitos. Around 10pm we got told off by the hostel and was told we either had to go out or got to bed as the owner was trying to sleep - the first time we have been told to go to bed by a hostel. We decided to head out to a local bar called Joy Ride with some guys from the hostel and there we ended up seeing the 3 swedes from Mendoza - it was all a bit of a blur after that. Those guys can party!
The next morning we both woke up with the worst hangover and Jon constantly thinking he was going to throw his guts up. We had intended on spending the day doing some
sightseeing of Sucres beautiful old colonial buildings and churches but ended up spending most of the day feeling sorry for ourselves and napping. In the evening some of the guys decided they wanted to do a BBQ so we all sat round in the courtyard chatting and listening to music until 10pm when we got told to go to bed or go out again, we chose the latter option after still feeling a little delicate from the night before. It was great the next day seeing everyone as hungover as us the day before, especially Devon who did end up chucking his guts up. It was safe to say our 18 hour bus journey to La Paz later that day was going to be a big struggle for the fella.
The journey wasn't the best, although we had full cama beds, seatbelts dont exist in Bolivia and the driver loved going super fast around sharp corners so we didn't sleep all that well. Nevertheless we arrived in La Paz, Bolivia's largest city at around 7am and had a short walk to our hostel - Adventure Brew BnB. Our room wasn't ready when we arrived so we delved into the
free unlimited pancakes. Jon said he was going to eat around 10 pancakes and he shamefully managed 2, I only managed 1 as they were so thick! Devon, Lisa and Jools who we were still travelling with kindly let us leave our rucksacks in their room and our quest to find Jon trainers began....again!
We headed to the bustling, lively markets and must of gone into about 10 stores but there was still no luck finding any trainers the right size so we admitted defeat and gave up. We went for lunch and then headed back to the hostel to finally check into our room and shower. After a shower and a nap we grabbed our free beer from the hostel bar and went out for dinner with Devon and the girls. We were all pretty shattered from the bus journey so took it easy that night after dinner and had an early one.
The next day we went to the Mercado de Hechicería ("Witches Market") where they sell jewellery, lotions, potions, dead llamas and llamas fetuses which was a bit freaky. On the night we headed to the hostel sky bar that looks out over La Paz
and was really a beautiful sight at night. We met up with our German friend Norman from Mendoza and the Swedes and after a few Mojitos we all headed out to one of La Paz's many party hostels called Wild Rover. We drank some pretty awful cocktails and did some pretty awful dancing which consisted of me being pushed into a circle and throwing my head around to Will.i.ams - Britney Bitch. The following day, you guessed it we were hungover and my neck was pretty much in pain for the rest of the day from all the dancing. We spent the day doing travel admin and I napped a lot.
As we had spent the first few days not doing a great deal we decided that our last day before heading to Puno we would do some sightseeing around La Paz. We got up in the morning with great intentions of having a busy day but I got struck with diarrhoea......AGAIN! As this has been quite a common occurrence for me on this trip I thought it would pass so we decided to head out and do the sightseeing we had planned. We made our way to the
Presidential Palace where there were some gorgeous colourful, colonial buildings and a small square full of pigeons. The locals absolutely loved them and were even letting them sit on their heads! After fighting our way through the pigeons we headed to Museo San Francisco in this grand old church. We were given an English speaking guide who went into great deal on everything and gave us a great picture of what happened there. There were lots of religious paintings and historical artefacts to see as well as a great view of La Paz from the roof where the old church bells are. By this point though my stomach wasn't doing so great, so after exploring the museum with our guide we headed back to the hostel where I spent the rest of the day in the bathroom .
That was due to be our last day in La Paz as we were getting the bus to Puno the next morning at 8am. Unfortunately Jon got rudely awoken at 3am by excruciating stomach pains and we were both having to use the toilet until the early hours. There was no way either of us could get the bus so we
ended up having to stay in La Paz another day where we spent most the day in bed and didn't get the bus until 8am the next day.
Overall we had just over two weeks in Bolivia and our favourite part was most definitely the Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flat Tour). We had such a great group and shared far too many poo stories - Jools you are the funniest girl I have ever met! We don't know whether we didn't enjoy the rest of Bolivia as much as everywhere else due to getting sick or whether the sights to see just weren't that interesting to us. What we did know was that we wanted to get the hell out of there and to Peru as quick as we could to give our poor stomachs a break!
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